Guns and bozos: all bang, no bullet
GUNS and bozos. We’ve got politicians trading votes over a nonsensical gun ban while they blow our future to the scheissenhausen.
No wonder this government looks more terminal by the day, with the Essential poll this week putting Labor ahead by a daunting 53 per cent to 47.
This latest pratfall: Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm revealed this week he’d discussed a vote trade with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. He’d vote for Turnbull’s Australian Building and Construction Commission to curb rogue unions if the government dropped its temporary ban on imports of a seven-shot Adler lever-action shotgun.
Leyonhjelm told me Employment Minister Michaelia Cash seemed open to this trade.
No wonder. The government is desperate to get parliament to vote for this ABCC, not least because it called an early election on the excuse that the old parliament blocked it.
‘Senator David Leyonhjelm revealed this week he’d discussed a vote-trade with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.’
Asked on Tuesday morning about trading guns for votes, Turnbull waffled again: “I’m not going to speculate about negotiations with senators.” Cue outrage. Labor leader Bill Shorten attacked Turnbull for allegedly wanting to weaken the gun laws brought in by prime minister John Howard in 1996.
“This is not the party of John Howard and his law,” he bellowed.
“They are not fit to clean his shoes on this issue.”
Former PM Tony Abbott gave Labor more ammunition, tweeting that he, too, found it “disturbing to see reports of horsetrading on gun laws”.
Enough. Time for facts.